Nano Banana Pro: Google CEO Sundar Pichai posts photo of 2017 burger emoji controversy, Elon Musk replies

Google CEO Sundar Pichai stirred up a nostalgic tech in-joke on X following the launch of Nano Banana Pro AI image model. He posted a photo referencing the infamous 2017 burger emoji controversy, sparking a reply from Elon Musk. Pichai’s post used the abbreviation “iykyk” (if you know, you know) to recall the moment in October 2017 when the internet erupted over Google’s burger emoji design, which incorrectly placed the cheese layer beneath the beef patty, defying standard culinary practice for melting.

The attached image highlighted the original "incorrect" stacking (lettuce, tomato, patty, cheese) contrasted with the corrected version (lettuce, tomato, cheese, patty), a fix that was implemented in the Android 8.1 update to align Google's emoji with platforms like Apple.


“Will drop everything else we are doing and address on Monday:) if folks can agree on the correct way to do this!” Pichai said at that time.

While seemingly trivial, the latest post by Pichai post serves as a demonstration of Gemini 3’s advanced image rendering capabilities. Through the post, Pichai demonstrated the AI model’s strength with spatial orientation and the precise relative positioning of objects.

Elon Musk responds to Pichai's post

The post quickly garnered high engagement, including an approving emoji from Elon Musk, owner of X and xAI.

He simply posted ‘Bull’s eye’ emoji (commonly seen as Target emoji).

Meanwhile, in a separate post, Pichai talked about the infographic prowess of Nano Banana Pro.

“You went [Bananas] for Nano Banana. Now, meet Nano Banana Pro,” he said, while announcing the new model.

“It’s SOTA for image generation + editing with more advanced world knowledge, text rendering, precision + controls. Built on Gemini 3, it’s really good at complex infographics - much like how engineers see the world:)” he added.